The Shrieking Shack

[Lily Evans]

.

[James Potter]

James grinned as she stepped into the cloak with him, and he took a second to rearrange it a little so that it would keep closed around them, and he checked to make sure it was still covering their feet while she talked. Looking down at her with mischief in his eyes, he nodded with a smirk. "Well, yeah. It's great, isn't it? Granted, I haven't actually murdered anything, Miss Evans, but I have been sneaking out and going anywhere I liked anytime I liked essentially since first year. Now you know my great secret of mischief and excellence. You and the Marauders are the only ones who know about it. My dad gave it to me, and I guess eventually I'll give it to my own kid one day. I'll be sad to hand it over though, this thing is fun. Come on, I'll show you." He smiled at her and debated for a moment if he should just take her hand or slip his arm around her shoulders or something, to ensure they would stay right side by side and not compromise the arrangement of the fabric and give them away. He decided against putting his arm around her for now, though he'd given it a considerable amount of thought, and wrapped his hand around her small one instead. Moving carefully at first, he waited until their stride matched and made his way through the streets toward the Shrieking Shack. There were a few students already there, hanging out by the fence and staring at the house as if they were waiting for something to happen. James looked down and winked at Lily, circling around to a break in the fence, and stopping just inside it. He knelt down, pulling her gently down with him, and he picked up a rock off the ground. Waiting, he selected a seventh year Slytherin guy standing nearby, talking some big talk to a girl standing beside him. James took aim and fired the rock at the guy, hitting him square in the knee. He waited a moment, and threw another, laughing as quietly as he could manage beneath the cloak.

[Lily Evans]

Lily blinked. "Please don't talk about yourself and your future child anymore; the concept of you reproducing is creepy," she announced. A little smile curved her lips, though, because James spoke of it with an endearing kind of enthusiasm and a warmth that betrayed how important the Cloak and what it represented actually was to him. "It's very beautiful, though," she murmured, her voice dropping automatically because really the whole thing deserved an air of mystery. She let him take her hand, drawing close as they made their way towards the Shrieking Shack, remaining silent and watchful as James threw the first two rocks. Lily didn't bother reprimanding him, he already knew she would object to injuring anybody -even some tough-talking Slytherin git- and it was obvious he was aiming low and not too hard.
The Slytherin shouted and looked wildly around, the girl he was chatting up squealed loudly, and Lily clapped a hand to her own mouth to stifle the giggles. Silently, she drew her own wand with her free hand and began waving it in little circles, murmuring charms under her breath. Unnoticed by the now-vaguely-terrified couple, a cloud of snow was gathering silently, a few feet above their heads. It was about a minute of tense silence and stillness for the Slytherins, but soon enough Lily had amassed a decent snow cloud. Taking a pause, she grinned up at James and then broke the spell. The frozen deluge fell without warning.

[James Potter]

James watched Lily with disbelief, hardly able to accept that he was under his invisibility cloak, making trouble with Lily Evans. If someone had told him this was how he was going to spend his final Halloween at Hogwarts, he would have laughed in their face, as much as he would have wished it true. But here he was. "Brilliant," he whispered, watching the snow cloud grow above the Slytherins heads. He turned to look at her as he noticed her turn toward him, and had been so entranced by the glint in her eyes that he forgot to look back where her wand was pointing. Instead, he found himself staring at the side of her face, and her eyelashes and nose and freckles. He missed seeing the snow fall from Lily's spell, held captured by a different sort of spell as he looked at her. But the screams and shouts of the aftermath caught his attention again, and he looked up laughing at them as they whirled around in horror. "Now the final touch," he whispered to her, picking up a branch nearby and holding it carefully out, standing up slowly to give it the illusion of floating. He grasped Lily's hand again and walked forward, carrying the stick toward them and prodding the guy in the shoulder. He turned around and screamed, grabbing his female companion around the waist and running back toward town, though it was clear that he had tried very first of all to put her between him and the large branch and the Shrieking Shack which seemed not to like them standing so close to it. "True gentleman," James scoffed, dropping the branch and grinning down at Lily.

[Lily Evans]

If anyone had told Lily this is how she would spend her Halloween, she'd have told them to sod off. But here she was, and she'd had nothing but fun all day. She'd call the whole thing inconceivable, but she wouldn't want anybody telling her it perhaps did not mean what she thought it meant. Luckily for James, Lily didn't seem to notice that he was staring at her for so long while she played her little trick. In the aftermath, she fell about in silent hysterics of laughter, and raised a hand momentarily towards James' lips as if to caution him to be more quiet, too. "Shh," she breathed, not that the Slytherins were actually in much of a state to be listening out for the quiet sounds anyway.
When James' final move sent the couple barrelling back towards the streets of Hogsmeade as if the devil himself was hot on their heels, Lily shook her head. She was still laughing quietly, but no longer making as much of an attempt to be silent; there was nobody else around. "No wonder they say chivalry is dead," she commented casually. Unconsciously huddling a little closer to James -he really was just so much warmer than she, and they didn't want to risk the cloak not covering them both wholly, right?- Lily turns to get a better look at the Shrieking Shack itself. She chewed her lip, what little lipstick she'd put on that morning long since gone, and contemplated the ramshackle building in silence.

[James Potter]

"Not completely," James mumbled in response, turning as she did to look at the shack. The place didn't scare him, but that's because he knew the reason for the noises that came from it. He remembered all too well the nights that his friend had spent in there and the destruction he had unwillingly caused on the building. He remembered all the weeks of studying and learning so that he and the others could turn into animals as well in order to help their friend. He knew how much Remus hated himself in the aftermath and how important it was that they were there to help cheer him up and heal him if need be. He had gotten rather good at most healing charms because of it and had gone so far as to get several books on healing charms to study and memorize. He felt a responsibility for his friends, he always wanted to make sure they were alright and happy, and he found that he definitely included Lily in that list of people he wanted to make sure were safe. He glanced down at her and noticed her chewing on her lip, staring at the Shrieking Shack. He grinned. "Want to go in?"

[Lily Evans]

Lily didn't answer James' mumble. Yeah, chivalry wasn't completely dead, but some days it felt like it. She watched the building still, her keen eyes taking in the details of the place. She'd not seen all that much of it, she'd been curious in third year and their first trips to Hogsmeade, she and Sev had spent one spring afternoon with sweets from Honeydukes and bottles of dandelion juice (yuck, turned out Lily hated the stuff, and what the bloody hell was meant to be the juice of a dandelion anyway?), picnicking in front of the Shack, but had found nothing. Sev in particular had been keen to explore as much as possible, but they'd not found a way in and had turned away empty-handed. There was no evidence of ghosts coming from the gloomy house, nothing to threaten their safety. Although something Lily had always wondered, but never asked because she didn't like to advertise her ignorance of the magical world if she could help it, was why wizards would be afraid of a haunted building the way muggles could be, anyway. Hogwarts had shown Lily that ghosts were really nothing to fear.
What Lily felt when she looked at the Shrieking Shack wasn't fear, but sadness. She always felt that if buildings told stories, this building's tale would be despair and loneliness. She blinked. It finally occurred to her that James had spoken to her again, and she'd barely taken notice. She shrugged herself out of her contemplation. "Yeah, all right. Suppose you know the way in?"

[James Potter]

I'M FREE I'M FINALLY FREEEEEEE. Well mostly, just one more project to do for Friday but otherwise I'M DONE AND I CAN RP AGAIN OMG I MISSED YOU *CLINGS* >.> Anyway. Time to put on the James hat.

"Of course I do," he told her with a smirk, tucking the cloak back into his pocket and starting with her toward the shack. He approached it at the front, but once they got close, he circled around to the side, finding an old wooden door that could be easily overlooked. "I think this goes in by the old kitchen." He pulled out his wand and tapped it to the doorknob, and a loud popping noise broke the silence and the door swung inward. A little dust cloud stirred up from the quick motion of the door, and James waited for it to clear before he stepped just inside, taking a precursory look around to ensure it was actually empty. "Come on in," he moved to the side to allow her to pass through the doorway and into the dark kitchen, tracing a small quick circle in the air with his wand, using a lumos charm to light the room for them.
It was musty inside, dark and dusty in the kitchen. They didn't much come in this room when they came with Remus, generally just using the sitting room and the bedroom upstairs. Padfoot had once suggested they store snacks and things in the kitchen in case they get hungry while they were here, but that was quickly decided against as they realized how many other rats and little things of the sort frequented the house as well. James moved through the kitchen, peeking into the hall and around to the front door and sitting room with the old broken couch he'd fallen asleep on a few times before.

[Lily Evans]

*CLINGS* WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO WELL DONE! I MISSED YOU. <3
Hem hem.
>.>

Lily kept up with James as he approached the Shack, just a half-step behind him considering he knew where he was going and she did not. She even missed the door at first, her eyes slid right over it, but as soon as James approached it the entrance was clear as day to her. Covering her nose and mouth with her hand, she waited for the dust cloud to clear and waved her hand about at the air as if to clear it more while James stood aside for her to pass. As she squeezed past him, stepping carefully as even with James moving aside there was not all that much space in the opening, she smirked up at him. "You sound entirely too at home here, Potter. Something to confess?"
Her gaze flickered about the dim, musty kitchen and she lit her own wand to better see. A cockroach skittered across the floor in front of Lily as she stepped towards the far door leading to the rest of the house. Startled by the sudden movement, Lily baulked, but quickly recovered her senses and reverted her attention back to her surroundings. "How'd you stumble on that, anyway? There's got to be some pretty impressive concealment charmwork cloaking the doorway, it's not the sort of thing one could expect to just happen upon."

[James Potter]

James simply laughed when she asked if he had something to confess. He looked around as if exploring it as well, and watched as her eyes roamed over every surface. He stepped out into the hallway, but was immediately distracted by the long gouged claw marks from last full moon running along the hall walls. He had broken out of the bedroom and tore through the shack, and it had taken both himself and Padfoot to get him under control and keep him from hurting himself. "Hm?" he said, as Lily's voice pulled him from his thoughts, but he realized what she had said a moment later. "Oh. Uh, the Marauders and I thought about using it as a club house kind of thing since no one else comes here. Ultimate private spot, right? But that didn't really work out since it's sort of far from Hogwarts and we can't all fit under the cloak together anymore. Residual charm from that, I guess." He shrugged and turned around to look at her, leaning against the wall and giving her a semi-calculating glance. "You don't seem scared to be in here?"

[Lily Evans]

Lily followed James into the hall, her eyes also naturally drawn to the gouges in the walls. The damage was startlingly different to the general disrepair of the rest of the house. "Well, yes, can't imagine too many people wanting to come here. And even fewer able to find their way in. This is interesting," she commented, her hand hesitantly touching one of the gouge marks as if to test it. She looks around, though, pulled from her current train of thought by James' observation. She smiled, a little wryly. "What, you were expecting me to be a mess? I don't think there's really anything to be frightened of - except of course whatever animal that did all this damage coming back. I don't know, James, I know the rumours about all the screaming and crashing about in here, but I don't think it's haunted. Sometimes I wonder if it's all a huge hoax is all," she shrugged.

[James Potter]

James smirked and shrugged at her. "I dunno. Not really. I just know some girls get all weird when they're even standing at the fence and swear they'll never go closer to it than that fenceline. I know we tried to talk Alice Prewett into coming once and she got inside and had a bit of a panic attack, but she's sort of a quirky one anyway. Fun, but quirky." Also Pansy misses Dee but that is slightly irrelevant. James made his way down the hallway, peeking into the rooms he passed as he considered Lily's theories about how the shack was 'haunted' or not. "I think I'm with you on that. Even while we were trying to make this into a club house, we never really found any ghosts or anything. And you'd think that if it was haunted, they wouldn't want us hanging out here. Then again, we never did spend the night here. I think Wormtail would have wet himself if we ever did that, to be honest." Laughing, James moved into the sitting room, glancing out the large bay window there. It was so musty it was nearly impossible to see into the dark house through it, but you could see out a little easier. Hogsmeade was visible just a little ways away. "Oddly enough, this house would have a nice view and stuff if it wasn't so dirty and creepy. Not that I want to move in or anything, I'm just saying." He remembered watching the moon from this window for the past few years. Waiting for the clouds to pass and the moon to come out, waiting for the noises upstairs, waiting for the dawn to come.

[Lily Evans]

Posting on my iPad in public like a boss while I wait for the mechanic to finish inspecting my car. I regret nothing.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Really, Potter? I doubt most of them would have a problem coming in here if they could count on some git playing a tough guy to latch onto every time the wind makes the upstairs shutters rattle. Surprising about Alice, though. We've shared a dorm for years, usually she's pretty, erm, out there. Maybe something about this house just got to her," she mused. Missing Dee is always relevant, btw. Lily laughed along with James, the mirthful sounds echoing through the house in an eerie way. "It'd be cruel and kind of irresponsible to dare him to try to spend the night, wouldn't it?"
She stood at the bay window and peered out through the filthy glass alongside James. "You're right; it would've been a nice enough place if it wasn't so rundown. And sad. You know how some places just have -I don't know how to put it- a character of their own, I suppose? Well this house just feels like despair to me. I wonder if that would change if someone ever cleaned it up or if it's just set in it forever now."

[James Potter]

"Hey, I don't know how you girls work. Maybe you're right." He glanced around the room as Lily talked about the feeling of despair. "I can feel that, too. It seems like something that deep doesn't really go away by just changing the drapes and sweeping the floor, know what I mean?" He turned around to face the room, watching how the fading light outside didn't light it much. It looked a little creepy, the exceptionally faint light coming through the window, golden of the sunset, filtered through the thick dirt on the window. "Some feelings just don't go away." He looked at her softly for a moment before moving to sink down on the old couch, sinking into the cushions much further than would have been expected. It squeaked as if it were letting out a long weary sigh under James's weight, and he coughed and squinted as it sent up a little plume of dust around him. "It's got a heavy sort of quiet in here, I guess."

[Lily Evans]

Lily nodded silently along as James described the feeling of the Shack perfectly. Her lip twitched, but she held back because it seemed like too... nice -Merlin, there's that weirdness again- a feeling to be relating so easily to James Potter that she'd rather not break it. She left the opening created by his admission of not knowing how girls worked alone. She read the real meaning under his words when he said some feelings don't go away and felt her face get a little hot. Her stomach swooped and she stayed facing the grimy window a few seconds longer as James crossed over to the couch and sank onto it.
"Some feelings do, though," she said, her voice low. It was true, it happened between people all the time. Lily's contempt for James had gone away, that much was certain, and deep down she couldn't help but wonder; would his feelings for her go away one day? She turned finally and drifted towards the couch, waving away the lingering clouds of dust in the air. "It does. It's not what I expected," she blurted. A lot of things weren't what she expected lately.

[James Potter]

"The ones that matter don't," he answered her simply, looking up at her as she stood before him in front of the old couch. The gentle light on her face was perfection, glinting off her hair just enough to make it like fire, lighting across the freckles that spattered her cheeks and nose perfectly, catching her eyes from the side so they lit up in an almost unnatural but undeniably beautiful way. James swallowed. He wanted nothing more than to jump up and take her face in his hands and kiss her, but he also knew what the consequences of that would be. Lily accused him of never learning, and maybe he didn't, but he never forgot. Such bruises and little injuries sustained from the temper of Lily Evans were not easily forgotten. He never regretted it though, not really. But he would not chance it this time. Touching her hair uninvited was a stretch in truth, going on his whim to kiss her, well, he feared for his life if he were to try that. He hardly registered what she said about it not being what she expected. He was only watching the way her lips moved to form the words, almost as if he were lost in a trance, caught under her spell once again.

[Lily Evans]

Lily swallowed, unconsciously mirroring James in her nervousness. The way he was looking up at her frightened her. It wasn't creepy or weird, or any of those stalkerish words you might use to describe someone staring at you, but it was unsettling. He had that 'I can see exactly who you are' look that made Lily feel more exposed than the couple of inches of skin bared between her high boots and the hem of her dress could. She looked down, chewing her lip, and the silence stretched on.
It was probably less than a minute, but to Lily it felt like an unbearable eternity. A wave of awkwardness hit her, and determined to break it she leaned down and grasped James' hand to pull him to his feet. "Come on, are you going to sit on some dustbowl couch all night when there's a Hogwarts feast in the making?"

[James Potter]

James felt none of the awkwardness she was experiencing, being utterly lost in his thoughts and the way he let his eyes sneak over her face and between her glowing eyes. He was shaken from his admiration when she finally took his hand and spoke, and he blinked several times as he allowed her to pull him up. He made no move to let go of her hand, and hoped she wouldn't make him. "Very true, Evans. Very true!" He laughed and moved back through the house and through the kitchen, pushing the door open for her to pass through first, so that they could leave the shack behind and head back up to the castle where waiting for them was the greatest feast at Hogwarts, well, perhaps the third place feast just behind the Welcome Back feast and the Christmas feast. He paused just outside the shack, and looked at her with a half-grin on his face. "I just realized we forgot to find the others today. They'll think we ditched them! Or they didn't miss us at all. I'm not sure which is more distressing. I'm sure they're very worried about our whereabouts and will be keen to see us in the Great Hall, right?" He laughed warmly, and didn't really stop until they had reached the fence and hillside to get back into Hogsmeade. And Mya can either post here, or in the Great Hall. Whichever you prefer.

[Lily Evans]

Continued in the Great Hall.

[Violet Lockwood]

Violet laughed softly, shaking her head. "I think you're right. It's a miracle I'm still walking properly as it is. Actually," she paused, fishing her wand out from beneath the folds of her cape, "these shoes have to go away though if that's going to keep happening." She stopped, nearly falling forward because Walden did not stop and his arm had continued guiding her along. She regained her balance - likely with some help from him - and then concentrated on transfiguring the heels of her shoes away, turning them into flat-bottomed boots, much safer for her to be walking about in, in this state at least. "Better. And that sounds fine. I've always wondered if it's any scarier at night. I kind of doubt it." She followed wherever he guided, leaning into his side slightly without much realizing it, using him to ensure she could keep respectfully upright.

[Walden Macnair]

When he realised what she was trying to do he stopped, tightening his grip around her to keep her upright. When she had successfully transfigured them, rather impressive in her current state and considering her lack of transfiguration skills, he didn't loosen his grip around her waist. "It's not frightening any time of day, and I've never actually heard anything from their other than wind." He wondered what she was thinking and what kissing her, and her kissing him, had done to their already short and somewhat unstable relationship. Maybe unstable was the wrong word though... More along the lines of unfounded. They just didn't know enough about each other, or at least she didn't know much about him.

[Violet Lockwood]

Violet can do transfiguration things so long as they seem straight forward and have a practical purpose that she can see. Turning a rock to a feather has no practical purpose to her, and so she cannot do it because she is too stubborn to. But she can indeed change her shoes. "Wind. Yeah. Just the wind," she shrugged, not sure why she repeated it in the first place. She followed him as they moved down the hillside toward the fence that cut along the shack's land. Unstable was alright, as was unfounded, for describing their relationship, but perhaps 'uneven' was even more accurate. Uneven in how much they knew about each other, since Walden had been told in detail about her past, yet she knew nothing of his. Uneven in what they would call what is between them, where Walden is referring to it as a relationship, and Violet would simply call it a friendship. Uneven in that he was still contemplating the kisses, and Violet was considering if she would be able to climb over the low fence or if she ought to try and duck through it instead. Uneven in that whether he realized it or not, it was very likely that he was already quite attached to her, and yet she had very little affinity for him in that way so far. "Are we just looking, or are we finding a way in?" She looked up at him, mischief sparkling in her eyes once again.

[Walden Macnair]

That's quite a list of inconsistencies. When she asked he looked down at her then back at the house, "I was only thinking looking but on second thought sneaking in has more appeal." Letting go of her he walked a little over to the left, looking to see if he could find a gap in the fence, or at least a part that looked alright to crawl over. Finding a likely spot he called her over then dropped his scythe by the fence and took off the cloak, hanging it there so it didn't get tangled and cause him to fall off and injure himself. Regaining his footing on the other side he looked at the house before turning around to make sure she was sober enough to get over the old fence.

[Violet Lockwood]

Violet paused for a moment when he wandered off, but soon followed after him as he climbed over the fence. She looked at it, considering how this would work, and finally decided to just swing her leg up over and settle down on the top plank of the fence. She sat there for a minute, sort of just looking around, almost as if she had forgotten she could just swing her other leg over as well and hop down on the other side. She wobbled a moment, perched on top of the thin beam. She glanced up at Walden, but refused to ask help, finally swinging her leg over and smiling as she got both her feet on the correct side of the fence. "Ha," she said quietly and excitedly, hopping down so her feet were firmly on the ground once again. However, her cape remained snagged on the fence as she began to walk away, and didn't tear free when it reached its limit. Instead, it tugged her backward, choking her as it jerked back at her neck, and sent her sprawling onto the ground. A few curses escaped her lips and she looked around as if she were searching for what had knocked her over so suddenly. "That was not according to plan." She started laughing. Generally she would have been embarrassed, or wold have prevented that from happening at all, but the alcohol was definitely taking effect, and she was simply sitting there laughing instead.

[Walden Macnair]

After making sure she had gotten herself off the fence he turned around to walk away before hearing a thunk. Turning back to her he had to laugh, seeing her sitting on the ground tangled in her cloak. He stood there, doubled over laughing at her as she sat doing the same thing. He didn't remember the last time he had laughed so hard and when he finally stopped he caught his breath and walked past her, unhooking her cloak then offering her a hand up. Once she was back on her feet he turned back to the house again, walking closer and up to it, looking into some of the windows between the boards.

[Sponsored content]